


Foggy Memories

by sorcererinslytherin



Series: Ashes and Embers: Days in the Lives of the FAHC [5]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Sickfic, gavin gets sick and it sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorcererinslytherin/pseuds/sorcererinslytherin
Summary: Sometimes external events trigger distant memories, even for an immortal. Gavin gets sick and panics - the rest of them wonder what in his past brought such fear of a simple cough.Part of my crosspost from tumblr. Read more in my Ashes and Embers series.





	Foggy Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cross-posting my favorite fics from tumblr over here to AO3. They will all be posted individually but collected in a series titled "Ashes and Embers." Please feel free to check out all of them and give me a follow over on tumblr if you like them!

The Fakes rarely got sick. It was never really something that happened - perhaps immortality gave them a boost to their immune systems. Certainly it wasn’t because they took care of their bodies and stayed healthy, not with all the heists and the terrible food they ate and the days without sleep. 

But occasionally, someone succumbed. It was normally just a cough or a sniffle and was just bullied through with the brute force that the Fakes brought to everything in their lives. But on a late Friday afternoon in the middle of December, after it had rained for four days straight, Gavin woke up and found he couldn’t move.

His head pounded like he had a sledgehammer slamming on the inside, his throat was scratched and raw, and he felt sweaty all over. He was so hot and his body ached like he had spent all day lifting weights. But he hadn’t and that was the confusing bit - he had spent the day out on a stakeout mission, bent over a pair of binoculars as the rain fell down over him.

Geoff had joked that they had better shower and eat something before bed or ‘they’d catch their death’. They had all laughed. Fucking christ, he had laughed.

Now…? 

He shuddered and coughed. Spit hit his hand and as he glanced at it, the panic hit full fucking force. Unable to catch his breath, he sputtered, trying to shift and sit up. He couldn’t be sick. He couldn’t….

_….a makeshift hospital. Everyone coughing and groaning and screaming…._  
blood on a handkerchief…   
a person dragging him out…. but Mother…. he couldn’t….  
sweat. so much sweat. he was going to drown in it.  
why was he so COLD?  
he couldn’t…  
couldn’t breathe….  
oh someone Oh SOMEone please GOd help… 

He must have screamed. He couldn’t remember. Suddenly there were hands on him and he was thrashing and screaming and he couldn’t _breathe_ … and then there were hands on both shoulders and a body over him and when he focused, Ryan was staring down at him.

“Breathe,” the man said and Gavin took a stifled, broken breath. “Breathe, Gavin.” Ryan’s voice was very commanding, but not in a cruel way.

Gavin sucked in a bit of a breath, following Ryan’s face as he mimed taking a deep breath, and slowly… slowly… the panic abated. He was able to breathe, the sweat less cloying, the smell of death from a far distant memory leaving his nose.

The others were clustered around the bed. Michael was holding a glass of water and looking shocked. “What the fuck was that?” he demands.

“Nightmare?” Jack asks, moving over. Her hand skims over his forehead and then his belly and hands. She frowns. “Gavin, you’re burning up. Raging with fever. Michael, give me that water and then go get me some ibuprofen. Ryan, go get a cold cloth from the kitchen. Geoff, go get the thermometer. Jeremy, call Caleb and get him over here.”

They all scatter, Michael handing the water over to Jack before racing out to go fetch more and make himself useful. Jack settles by Gavin’s side, who shifts uncomfortably and tries again to sit up. “I’m not sick,” he protests, and then lets out a weak cough. “I can’t – Jack, I can’t be sick…” The panic flares again and Jack gently kisses him before it can get worse.

“Noo...” he protests, backing away. “Jack, that’s how it spreads, it’s …”

“Shush,” she says softly. “Gavin, it’s just a fever. You’re fine. What’s all this fear? We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Gavin screws his eyes shut as he coughs again, a racking cough filled with fluid that he hacked up. Tears sprang to his eyes as he forced himself to look at the fluid. It was a bit greenish, but thank god, no blood.

Jack’s eyes follow his to his hand and she lets out a small noise. “… Gav, did your first death have to do with sickness?”

The shudder of fear that goes through Gavin is remarkable and Jack’s forced to put her arm around him to calm him. He cuddles into her and she gently takes a spot next to her wounded Lad. “Y-yeah. Spanish Influenza. 1918. I - I was … t-taken away from my f….family, I died…. I was … I woke up in an unmarked pit…”

He shudders again and she holds him close, shaking her head. “Gavin, I… I’m sorry. I - fuck. That makes you a hundred years old?” 

He nods. “Give or take a few years. I was about fifteen. You know we age slowly like this.” He looks sweaty and his eyes are very, very wide. “I don’t want to die again, Jack. Not like this.”

She kisses his forehead, turning to look him in the eye. “I promise,” she breathes. “I will never, ever let you die of sickness again. And if you do, you’ll wake up with all of us around you. Pinky promise.”

He takes her pinky and they shake on it before he falls back, weak, into the pillows. She gives him some water and smiles. “I’ll go see where Michael is with those pills. I’ll be right back. You try to go back to sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Gavin blinks at her. “Promise?” His voice was a bit ragged.

“Promise,” she says gently and slips out of the room. Alone, Gavin forces himself to breathe normally. They were here. They would stay here with him. He’d never be alone again, not like that. Never again like that.

Curled into a pile of pillows, Gavin finally fell back asleep. Sick, but for now, safe.


End file.
